Help wanted with my dissertation

[El Presidente]

Im writing up my dissertation on Colour association and Lighting designers who challenge the cultural conventions of colour association. Unfortunately my university library is a bit thin on the ground for books and publications. I was wondering if anybody knew of any lighting designers or journals/publications/films/productions that have used 'risky' lighting designs. To give you an idea, I'm already using referances to Natural Born Killers, Sin City and Dogville. Any help would be very much appriciated.

 

Thanks. :unsure:

[benweblight]

I'm not sure this is any use to you but the Talking Heads 'Stop Making Sense' concert film was designed with only white light and variation was achieved through other means (shadows, angles etc.). I'd consider that different to the usual conventions of lighting (not that there are any really.....).

[tokm]

Second benweblight's suggestion (never thought I'd hear myself saying that!), also try looking at some of the Brechtian Theatre work. Again, white light only, so different from the norm of today!

 

Plenty about it on Google, just found that out for myself now when I checked the spelling!

 

HTH,

 

Tom

[Tom Baldwin]

In terms of accessing books, the British Library isn't far from you, and has every single book published in the UK.

 

For film, take a look at Dick Tracy for a very stylistic use of colour throughout the whole production design.

There was a theatre production in London fairly recently which used only a single Vari*Lite spot for the whole production - I can't remember any more details at the moment, but it was covered in Lighting & Sound International magazine, and was almost certainly in the last 3 years. The article talked about the use of colour.

 

Can you tell us any more about your dissertation, to help us suggest more productions?

 

You may find the Prague Quadrennial a source of inspiration.

[Simon Lewis]

Google Scholar, InterLibrary Loans and past PhD theses would be a good place to look...

[Brian]

Be careful about associating the colour of light you see in a film with the colour of light used on set. They usually have no resemblance to each other.

[Bryson]

Especially as the colour effects in the films you mention were almost certainly done in post-production "grading" rather than with light on set.

[Tom Baldwin]

Actually, the talk of grading reminds me of Hard Candy. Excellent film, and the extras on the DVD include something on how digital grading was applied at various points in the film.

[musht]

`One from the Heart` Francis Ford Coppola used some very theatre style lighting on set , controlled by a Strand AMC

[El Presidente]

Thank very much guys.

 

I'm still in the stage of preparing a presentation for my proposal at the moment so research is the key for me :)

 

What I'm trying to discuss/argue is that extreme designers are more successful than designers that don't break conventions. Within this I'm going to be discussing the ways that extreme designers break conventions by using methods such as challenging audiences colour association (as an example). Maybe also look into the use of angles and shadows to challenge normal conventions too. Its quite a difficult task for me to do as I'm not particularly academic, I know what I want to cover and discuss but getting it into an acceptable format for a university is a different thing!

 

There was a production I went to see years ago which was called 'Shock Headed Peter' which is a good example of what I'm trying to use as an argument for extreme design being more successful.

 

http://newpartisan.com/icleart/shp1.jpg

 

When I say extreme I don't mean it in the literal sense. I mean designers who are more willing to be bold and not stick the 'run of the mill' lighting design.

 

My tutor has suggested looking at cultural changes that have affected past extreme artists and designers and how by challenging their conventions in their era of design how this relates to modern day theatrics/film?

 

He's suggested maybe looking at German expressionist film, Film Noir

 

Hope this is a bit more of an insight of what im trying to put together. :)

 

Cheers!

[TeeJay]

Firstly, please use something like Photobucket or ImageShack to post images to a forum - it doesn't cost anything and you can add a thumbnail to the forum which people can click on to get the full image - far nicer than being confronted by a HUUUGGGEE image as you read (and the huge image makes it harder to read your post)

 

Back on topic:

 

I also saw Shock Headed Peter while it played London and while as a production it matches your description/usage of extreme, I don't recall the lighting being extreme. The picture you supplied shows that the LD at that point has gone for uplighting to support the spooky feel of that moment - which is something of a convention.

 

I'm not trying to rubbish your premise (I'm liking the premise) - I'm just playing devils advocate.

The reason that there are conventions is that they generally work - if you don't have much time to present an image to the audience, it can be more effective to do something that you know is going to work.

 

Though it would be interesting to have Satan appear in a flash of soft pink light ...

[Ken Coker]

What I'm trying to discuss/argue is that extreme designers are more successful than designers that don't break conventions.

 

I'm not sure how you can argue this. What is the metric of "success" you will use?

 

My tutor has suggested looking at cultural changes that have affected past extreme artists and designers and how by challenging their conventions in their era of design how this relates to modern day theatrics/film?

 

He's suggested maybe looking at German expressionist film, Film Noir

There is a fallacy that theatre and film are some how the same - all that nonsense about how a spotlight frames the shot. Have a look at "Semiotics and lighting: A study of six modern French cameramen" by Sharon A Russell. While you're at it, you might want to have a look at a few books by Christian Metz who has written extensively about the "language" of the cinema. These books should give you some idea of how a picture can be "read"; you might then wonder if this kind of "reading" can be applied to theatre and colour and what the differences are.

 

If you are going to use terms like "expressionist" or "film noir" you will then have to start considering the notion of "genre" and what this means in culture; some would argue that genre is an element of social control which reproduces the dominant

ideology. This might lead one to ask whether if an artist works in a genre, can they really be "extreme". On the topic of genre, it might be worth doing a bit of research to find out what "Brechtian" actually means. In "The Semiotics of Theater",(yes, it's an American book but your library should have it!), Erika Fischer-Lichte writes some interesting stuff about what Brecht was actually trying to achieve with his lighting.

 

Theatre lighting books are all pretty hopeless about colour, most of them not rising much above the yellow/happy, blue/sad kind of stuff. You might want to look outside the theatre world; Goethe wrote a pretty interesting book on colour and I would be interested to see a comparison between what Wittgenstein says about colour and what Pilbrow writes. I've written about it myself a bit, but that's in my dissertation.

 

Not sure if this answers any of your questions or not, but it hopefully might give you a few ideas to think about. Love to Dave Horn...

 

Cheers

 

KC

[El Presidente]

Thanks for all your help guys, all your suggestions have been very helpful.

 

Dave sends his love back Ken. :(